The Gulag Archipelago

[RGacky3]

Has anyone read this book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn about Gulags and the such? Opinions?

[Sky]

There does not exist any basis for the existence of such literature. The corrective labor camps in the USSR, a continuation of the katorga from the pre-revolutionary era, were necessary to rehabiltiate dangerous criminals and punish them for their harmful crimes. It is not constructive to exaggerate the significance of the corrective labor camps; workers in the corrective labor camps in the late 1940s were much less likely to die than Russians today. In order to complete important economic projects, the workers in the corrective labor camps were treated humanely. The right for the socialist state to punish dangerous criminals in penal institutions is inviolable, for precedent is found in thousands of years in history.

Solzhenitsyn is a traitor who betrayed his fatherland and rendered his services to imperialist enemies determined on enslaving his country; Solzhenitsyn even expressed sympathy towards the Nazi collaborationist Vlasov. He is a documented anti-Semite and a reactionary Tsarist nostalgist who adheres to all that is old, outmoded, stagnant, and hostile to everything that is new and progressive in society.

[Demogorgon]

The man would be easier to respect if he were not a raging anti-semite and defender of various other dictatorships. I don't deny what happened in the gulags, but I have no time for that man.

[Dejavu]

There does not exist any basis for the existence of such literature. The corrective labor camps in the USSR, a continuation of the katorga from the pre-revolutionary era, were necessary to rehabiltiate dangerous criminals and punish them for their harmful crimes. It is not constructive to exaggerate the significance of the corrective labor camps; workers in the corrective labor camps in the late 1940s were much less likely to die than Russians today. In order to complete important economic projects, the workers in the corrective labor camps were treated humanely. The right for the socialist state to punish dangerous criminals in penal institutions is inviolable, for precedent is found in thousands of years in history.

Solzhenitsyn is a traitor who betrayed his fatherland and rendered his services to imperialist enemies determined on enslaving his country; Solzhenitsyn even expressed sympathy towards the Nazi collaborationist Vlasov. He is a documented anti-Semite and a reactionary Tsarist nostalgist who adheres to all that is old, outmoded, stagnant, and hostile to everything that is new and progressive in society.

So are you seriously suggesting that all of the Gulag prisoners were criminals?

[RGacky3]

Sky is probably the most dilussional person I've ever come across.

I don't know much about the guy "Solzhenitsyn" as a person but the book is pretty powerful, and even if only half of it were accurate, it makes me still wonder how its possible that any serious leftist still could possibly support the USSR.

[Sky]

So are you seriously suggesting that all of the Gulag prisoners were criminals? I'm reporting what is found in the data of the NKVD. The vast majority corrective laborers were convicted of non-political crimes.

[careyprice31]

In one of my Russian history courses, I wrote a comparison between Solzhenitsyn's book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

and Varlam Sharlamov's Kolyma Tales.

Solshenitsyn when he went to the gulag, he served his time in a fairly mild prison, while Sharlamov went to Kolyma, one of the harshest places.

I don't believe that Solzhenitsyn was really in any position to write truthfully about the Gulag, he had served his time in a mild prison by the standards of the time and so did not know really about the true realities of the Gulag

while Sharlamov and Evgenia Ginzburg as well, who both served in Kolyma and both wrote Kolyma stories, wrote about the true harsh realities of the Gulags.

[Robert]

I'm reporting what is found in the data of the NKVD

Does anybody have a good straight jacket?

Or is he joking?